Organic-Tempered Pottery: An Experimental Study

Abstract

This paper presents the results of testing technological and techno-functional hypotheses concerning the effects of organic temper. Behaviorally relevant tests are used to compare the performance characteristics of untempered, mineral-, and organic-tempered briquettes and vessels. The characteristics tested include impact resistance, abrasion resistance, portability, thermal shock resistance, ease of manufacture, and heating effectiveness. Organic-tempered ceramics have superior performance characteristics during manufacture, allowing for an expedient ceramic technology. This, along with reduced weight and greater portability, may explain the preference for organic-tempered vessels by groups that frequently shift their residence. Moreover, it is found that all low-fired ceramics, but especially organic-tempered ceramics, are susceptible to complete breakdown in a moist environment under freeze-thaw conditions. Frost wedging is thought to be responsible for an underestimation of Late Archaic organic-tempered ceramics in northern latitudes as well as the destruction of any low-fired pottery subject to a moist depositional environment and freeze-thaw cycles.